Worlds of Irony
by FuckMePumps
Summary: [Reality wins over fiction this time] When taken in stride, a Fire Lord with a Waterbending bride doesn't seem so bad... not that all endings happen like that. 50sentence challenge, Zutara.


**This took me forever to complete, I don't know why. I kind of found my RobRae 100sentences easier to write. Huh. Oh well, just go read.**

**-**

**01 Motion**

Sometimes, the only movements between them are calm fingers closing over trembling ones; but most of the time, it is enough.

**02 Cool**

She presses her palm to his cheek, to the dreaded scar; he is surprised to find out the feeling is the exact reverse of the one that had last touched _that_ place.

**03 Young**

Iroh has told her of how he'd been before (feeding turtleducks, laughing with his mother, falling down during training and getting up again); she looks upon him now (always with the edge in his voice, prone to brooding, sharpening knives in front of the fire while the others exchanged jokes and merriment), and wishes she'd been there to see it.

**04 Last**

They say the best _should_ be saved for last; apparently, he is unaware of this, for in every kiss he partakes she feels that he assumes he will die the next moment.

**05 Wrong**

"It's not right," she pants, in difficulty or in ecstasy, she couldn't tell; when they climax he breathes in response, "It's not wrong either."

**06 Gentle**

The water slinked around his battered form gracefully; there is a hiss of pain, but still it soothes, _heals._

**07 One**

("Just one, please?") "Alright, just one then," she gives in, and he smirks and leans in to meet her lips; the promise is quickly broken, however, when he goes down for a second, a third, and a fourth… she doesn't complain, because after all, one is never enough.

**08 Thousand**

When the crown is bestowed upon his head (finally, after all this time), his nation breaks out in cheers (finally, his); but his eyes darts across the crowd and searches for the only face that truly mattered (finally, blue among the gold).

**09 King**

"I've lost my place, and with it my importance," he remarks bitterly while contemplating his worth; she argues that he hasn't, "Who else would rule my heart?"

**10 Learn**

"Teach me," she says to him after quietly observing his fighting routine, and he takes her by the wrist and comes up behind her, his body around hers and his chin resting on her shoulder, his strength pressing to her own, cheek against velvet cheek; slowly, he moves in the deliberateness of someone who wishes to relish the moment, and she follows.

**11 Blur**

"You may kiss the bride," the priestly sage declares, and she tips her head back to prevent the tears from spilling; but still they burn her eyes and thankfully, distort her peripheral view of the man she loved with someone she could only wish was her (she left him once, now he returns the favor).

**12 Wait**

"Wait!" he calls out as she runs away at the mere sight of him; he catches up to her with an "I'm not here to hurt you," and she wants desperately to believe him.

**13 Change**

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a little girl bump into him, sending the fruits from her basket and the food on his plate hurtling to the ground, and turned around to save the child from the flames and profanity that was sure to follow; instead, what she saw was him chasing an orange under the carts with an (almost) amused smile and the little girl giggling as she helped him help her.

**14 Command**

He's never really had an order defied by before, and she'd never answered to being bossed around; so when he retorted, "Leave me alone," to her attempts at conversation, well, she never could resist a challenge.

**15 Hold**

Dangling precariously on the edge of a cliff, it occurred to her that the only thing keeping her from falling was his secure grip on her wrist; she hopes it doesn't occur to him that they were enemies, that he should just let her die, that him catching her had been based purely on instinct and nothing else.

**16 Need**

"Keep breathing… please, keep breathing," his cracked pleas are resounding to memories, but still she struggles for another breath, just for him; but when they fade altogether, his cries were merely echoes falling on deaf ears ("Please wake up.")

**17 Vision**

She squints for a moment as she sees a dark form in the light of the sun; a couple more steps closer, and she shrieks in delight as she runs into the arms of a man whose face she had not seen in a (too) long time.

**18 Attention**

"I don't like how the girl with the daggers keeps glancing your way then blushes madly,"; "Why, isn't it better than her wanting to kill me?" ("Yes, and that's the problem.")

**19 Soul**

He was like an island unexplored, a treasure chest unopened, an enigma unsolved; she took it upon herself to find out the answers to questions he himself didn't know existed.

**20 Picture**

When everything falls down around them, she tries to imagine a better world, but then she feels his arms around her and she wets his skin with her tears; reality wins over fiction this time.

**21 Fool**

As he traces kisses on the side of her jaw she can barely think about his betrayed expression when she hands him over to the Earth Kingdom authorities; as her cool fingers stalk the shivers on his neck he has trouble picturing the look on her face when she finds out he has taken the Avatar captive with a Fire Nation army between them.

**22 Mad**

"Has he come back yet? He promised me he'll come back… he promised me and... Has he come back yet? He promised me…" and the rest just ignore the old woman's senile ramblings, none of the having the heart to tell her that the man she was waiting for had not and would not ever return.

**23 Child**

The little girl and boy hid in the bushes behind them, giggling at what they thought was the disgusting effect of _cooties_; the couple overhear this and exchange amused glances, willing to wager the possibility that the two would end up together someday.

**24 Now**

She found him on his knees, weeping silently on his uncle's makeshift grave, and impulsively draped an arm over his shoulders, caressing his wet eyes; when he sobs louder as he buries his face in her collarbone, he stops being the prince of the dragons and becomes the boy she knew had been inside of him all along.

**25 Shadow**

They prefer their trysts in darkness, because his fire had always been too bright and her water too binding.

**26 Goodbye**

Her lips are like ice as they miss their aim and collapse to the corner of his mouth, but for once he doesn't complain; it's not like he can.

**27 Hide**

There was a truth inside of him that he could not conceal with an angry flame-shaped scar and the wrath of a hundred men; he loved her, and it threatened to burst out of him to reveal him for the coward he was.

**28 Fortune**

"You will marry a powerful bender," Aunt Wu once foretold; what she never said that his strength would not be displayed in battle, but in making his element dance wildly in a show just for her, and that he makes her smile without much effort.

**29 Safe**

It is the harsh reality that there is no real safe place in the world; but while they are in each other's embrace, they can pretend.

**30 Ghost**

When the man in the blue-and-white mask put her down to her feet, she spun around to say her thanks; but at that very second he disappeared, elusive and chilling as the spirit he'd been named after.

**31 Book**

"…and they lived happily ever after, The End," when she finished her children gazed up at her expectantly, too young to have to know the harsh reality that fairytales don't necessarily apply in real life; their stares break away to instead glance at the spot on the where their father should have been.

**32 Eye**

Here is a child, born to grow up beautifully like her mother, who would possess the kind and fiercely loyal heart of her godfather, foretold to wield the blazing white flame of her late aunt, destined to arise to the throne like her father, and prophesied to die in a battlefield like her grand-uncle; but for now she is merely the darling of her nation, their little princess, the only firebender with blue eyes.

**33 Never**

"Don't say that word," she puts a finger to his lip, hushing him, "It makes things seem impossible."

**34 Sing**

She was the only one who ever persuaded him to go to Music Night; not by asking him to, but by her alluring, flawless crescendo with the passion of the flame and the rhythm of the river ("Take me away while the moon's still high; the sun will arise and we can no longer hide.")

**25 Sudden**

Every morning when she wakes up, she finds not his sleeping form beside her, but in his place was a different piece of jewelry or perhaps an interesting trinket; a ruby-encrusted bracelet, a moonstone brooch, a jade butterfly pendant, trying to make up for her mother's necklace, whose loss could be blamed on him.

**36 Stop**

She had thought that it was justice when they are about to kill him, for all his crimes and sins and wrongdoings, but it is when her stare descends to the look on his face, calm, accepting, and alone, that she feels the burn of tears behind her eyes and she throws herself upon him, sobbing into his neck and pleading to the executioner, "Stop, please stop." ("I forgave him; why can't you?")

**37 Time**

In mahogany hallways of the Fire Palace were intricate weavings of royal family portraits and elaborate paintings of historical battlefields and past kingdoms; she feels two strong arms encircle her waist and a voice upon her neck, "I'm wondering how it's like to know you will be up there too someday."

**38 Wash**

One by one, she takes off her garments and takes a dip in the river; it is cold, it is uninviting at first, but the waterbender in her loves things like these, even those on the façade of a firebender's temperament.

**39 Torn**

Two paths to choose: the road to redemption for the world (with the Avatar), or the dark alley screaming of danger and deceit (by a Prince's side); in the end, she chose the easiest way and escaped in the oceans of her death, knowing only her element could've understood.

**40 History**

"She has a history with him," whenever Sokka mentioned this to him, whether it was while she was greeting a long-haired Earth pretty boy, yelling with rage at a messy-haired stalk-chewing rebel, or even hugging the Avatar himself, he's just shrug it off; maybe the brother was trying to make him jealous, and besides, he didn't mind about whatever history she had with those other people, only about the chemistry she shared with him alone.

**41 Power**

All he'd ever wanted was now in his grasp: his title, his throne, his country; all of it tumbles down on him as he sees her, fallen in the battlefield, a dagger imbedded in the confines of a heart that would never beat again.

**42 Brother**

Two pairs of eyes watched from across the campfire at a petite figure filling up a flask in a stream nearby; ("You better take care of her, you got that?") the blue ones spoke volumes, and the gold ones flicked imperceptibly in reply ("Always, even without you watching.")

**43 God**

While cradling his bleeding head, tears streaming down her face, she is unaware that she is praying fervently to a Being she has never known; when his eyes fluttered open and he breathed a raspy 'Hello', she hugged him closer to her chest, her anguished tears turning to those of joy, as her gaze traveled gratefully to heaven, knowing that Someone out there had been looking out for them.

**44 Wall**

Everything about his current position was a paradox; within the walls of a steadfast city and struggling to protect it rather than being outside trying to bring it down, brandishing broadswords as weapons like the other peasants rather than using the fire in his veins like all the noble people of his kind, and a blue-clad girl at his side who used to run at the sight of him, who once called him the enemy.

**45 Naked**

"Stop looking at me like that," she hisses as his eyebrows shoot up innocently across the campfire; she is blushing madly, but would not admit she knows it, "It makes it seem like you can look through me."

**46 Drive**

It used to be his father's love, it used to be the throne, it used to be the Avatar; no one thought he would be after her next, and everyone knows that a prince hated to lose.

**47 Harm**

She did not know what to expect when she burst into the throne room where she knew he was battling his father; then her eyes settled on his broken form and a regal man about to thrust a flame in his side, and, no longer caring about her safety or his honor, and came between the two, snarling, "Touch him again, I dare you."

**48 Hunger**

Her mouth watered at the banquet laid before her: exotic-looking dishes which pained her not to taste them on her tongue and desserts which seemed too perfect to eat and he smirked, sweeping an arm across the table; what he didn't expect was her lips smashing against his in a desperate, needy kiss which she knew she had to have as she watched his mouth form the question, "Which would you like to try first?"

**49 Precious**

He brushes his knuckles ever-so-softly against the lift of her cheekbones, ("What we have, it's… it's…") she closes her eyes to focus on the feel of the heat underneath his skin ("Don't even try to describe it.")

**50 Believe**

"It's too hard, too much… we can't make it, we can't," and he wipes her tears away with the pad of his thumb, ignoring those that threatened to fall from his own eyes; he holds her close, whispering fiercely so that he may trust his words as well, "Believe in me, please; believe in us."

-

**If anyone knows where I can find 50 more themes, please tell me, as I really want to do a hundred on Zutara. Anyway, you have no idea how long it took me to do this, so please, leave a **

_**REVIEW!**_


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